Writing+Assessment+Do+It+Better,+Do+It+Less

“Writing Assessment: Do It Better, Do It Less” by Peter Elbow

Reviewed by Shirleen Augustine

The goal of Peter Elbow’s essay is to explore ways to minimize the untrustworthiness of quantitative writing assessment. Current assessments consist of one piece of writing, written in a predetermined format, and produced in an exam setting. This cannot possibly give an accurate assessment of what the particular student is capable of writing. Elbow’s first proposal is to use portfolios. Students perform differently on different occasions. A portfolio would be a collection of different pieces of writing, produced at different times, in different genres, directed to different audiences, and most of them not written under exam conditions. Being able to see what a student can do in a portfolio gives a whole picture of what the student can write, which in turn, makes the results more trusted. Elbow’s second proposal is to not use holistic scoring. Scoring at the current time involves a group of scorers who have been trained to use a scoring guide. They are trained to get agreement on their scores with the use of this guide. The agreement of the scorers cannot be trusted. When a person reads a text, they bring to the text their own set of values. Therefore, a particular text can hold different values and meanings depending on who is reading it. Put these same readers together scoring writing assessments and, somehow, they are expected to come to an agreement and give one score. One alternative to holistic scoring is to use minimal holistic scoring. Using a portfolio, the reader will be asked to place the student into one of three levels—excellent/notably strong, unsatisfactory/notably weak, or neither excellent nor unsatisfactory. Most portfolios can be read quickly and it can be decided if they are too weak to be excellent or too strong to be unsatisfactory, which leaves the extremes. The exceptional portfolios identify skilled students for exemption. The unsatisfactory students are identified as needing special help. A second alternative to holistic scoring is to use multiple-trait scoring. The evaluation isn’t trustworthy unless it avoids the rating with a single number. The reader will score //each// writing trait as notably strong, notably weak, or default to the middle range. Fair evaluation requires something more descriptive and analytic. By distinguishing strengths and weaknesses, the writers will receive feedback on their writing. Elbow encourages all teachers to push for more fairness and trustworthiness in the writing assessment. Using portfolios and avoiding the use of holistic scoring are possible alternatives to the current system of assessing writing